Unlike police departments, firehouses have relatively few women to begin with. And those with jobs often tolerate loutish behavior rather than risk being singled out, experts say.

About 75 of Columbus' 1,520 firefighters are women, just shy of 5 percent. The national average is 3.7 percent. The Columbus Division of Police, by comparison, is 10.7 percent female.

Suburban fire departments have even fewer women: Whitehall and Worthington have one each. Many have none.

Raechel Sterud was one of two women in the Orange Township Fire Department in Delaware County before she complained about a male co-worker's inappropriate advances and hostile work conditions. She was fired for poor performance in January 2008.

But the Ohio Civil Rights Commission validated her claim, finding no record of poor performance or disciplinary problems and ruling that fire officials had retaliated against her.

Sterud's case remains unresolved. She wants her job back, as well as compensation for lost wages, benefits and legal fees.

In 1997, Newark was ordered to pay firefighter Anita Stickle $200,000 and agreed to revamp its sexual-harassment policies and build a separate shower room for women to settle a harassment and discrimination case in Licking County Common Pleas Court.

A federal judge ruled three years later that the union representing firefighters there was not guilty of unlawful discrimination or harassment.

Stickle, later promoted to assistant chief, charged that colleagues tried to keep her out of the union, demote her and limit her overtime.

Retired for three years, she still suffers from the abuse and threats against her, she said. She keeps a child's doll, its neck slashed and placed in her turnout gear by a colleague, as a reminder.